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Changi International Airport, Singapore.
Changi possess the most beautiful airline terminal in the world.
Following a couple of delightful nights in Singapore, we arrived at Manila, after an uneventful three hours and 12 minutes in the air.
Unlike Singapore, I always experienced Manila to be dirty, rundown and dangerous, dear reader. I never felt comfortable on Manila’s mean streets, and was continually looking over my shoulder. There were far too many guns, knives and machetes here, with too many desperate people willing to use them. My six years of police work, coupled with my nervous left testicle, kept my paranoid radar on full-alert.
Manila International Airport.
I breathed a large sigh of relief when Sunday, 21st August, 1983, at last arrived. We were scheduled to head back to Singapore.
Early that afternoon, I found myself all alone in the cockpit getting it ready for our trip. The flight engineer was doing his walk-around preflight inspection, in the hot and nasty outside. While Cardinale was chatting up a cute Filipina stewardess at the modified galley, right outside the cockpit, in the first class lounge. The Filipina was preparing coffee, a croissant, and two aspirin for Cardinale’s hangover.
I, on the other hand, was in my F/O’s chair (cockpit’s right seat) loading the latitude and longitude coordinates of our gate into the three Inertial Navigation System computers (INS).
When I finished, switching them from “Standby” to “Align” - initiating their 20-minute countdown of self-checks - I noticed a China Airlines Boeing 767 pull in and park at the jetway next door. The 747 cockpit was akin to an “ivory tower” – sitting quite higher off the ground than the 767 – giving me a sense of safe, soundproofed isolation as I observed the world in miniature outside.
Thinking nothing of it, I then began pulling out my Jeppesen instrument departure plates, and en route charts, from their heavy manuals in my flight case on the floor next to my right leg. It took me a while to get them all, sort them out, and stow them for quick access. During this process, I happened to glance out my right side window, observing a group of men coming down the jetway’s narrow service stairway next door.
It gave me pause, dear reader, as these men weren’t airport staff. So what were these guys doing on the service stairs? I studied them for a while.
The man in front was in a white safari suit. The two men on either side of him were in khaki uniforms – each clamped to an arm. So was Mr. white safari suit under arrest? For it appeared to me he was in custody. These three men were followed by a fourth in a khaki uniform, plus two more men behind in civvies – with one carrying a bag. At the very top of the service stairs was a knot of people being held there at the doorway.
Losing interest, I went back to sorting out my charts. At which point I heard a single, muffled report outside. Assuming it was a service vehicle backfiring – I continued sorting my charts.
Nonetheless, after a long pause, my chores were interrupted by a series of muffled reports. These were gunshots!
What the fuck?
Glancing out my right side window again, my stunned brain refused to accept what I was seeing! This couldn’t be happening!
A blue, boxy van, with AVSECOM (Aviation Security Command) boldly written on its side, had backed in close to the jetway. Lying face down on the apron at the rear of this van was Mr. white safari suit – he wasn’t moving. Beyond him, at the left-rear corner of the van was another gentleman, in a blue shirt, lying on his back.
The back bumper of the van was designed as a step – its back door was open – and standing on the step, at the left rear corner of the van, was a man in blue combat fatigues firing an M-16 at the gentleman with the blue shirt! After emptying a clip, he slung the M-16 on a shoulder and took out a semiautomatic handgun – proceeding to also empty it into Mr. blue shirt. At that same moment, a second man in a khaki jumpsuit standing on the apron, joined in, blasting away with his semiautomatic at Mr. blue shirt!
Mr. blue shirt was unarmed, dear reader, and being murdered right before my eyes!
Finally these two killers ran out of ammo and disappeared. Two other men in blue combat fatigues materialized. Each grabbed Mr. white safari suit, and tossed him in the back of the van like a sack of rice.
The back door closed and the van took off; leaving Mr. blue shirt’s bullet riddled body on the apron in a pool of blood. Afterward chaos ensued with all manner of people and vehicles arriving.
Neither Captain Cardinale, nor the flight engineer, were aware of these events outside our aircraft. When they at length showed up in the cockpit, I never mentioned what I had witnessed.
My jittery left testicle and paranoid radar was 100-percent correct as regards Manila, dear reader. This was no place for Mrs. Chisholm’s little boy. I had no interest in finding out what the “Gunfight at the OK Corral” was all about. Volunteering as an eyewitness to Filipino authorities, wasn’t even remotely on my personal agenda! I simply wanted to get out of “Tombstone” - with all its gunplay - pronto!
We arrived at Singapore on schedule. SAUDIA put us up at the Intercontinental Hotel, located in an immaculate garden off Orchard Road. Later that evening, still keyed up from the murders, it took several bourbons to achieve sleep in my luxuriously-safe room.
The next morning, clothed in my hotel bathrobe, I had coffee, toast, scrambled eggs, and a Bloody Mary for my hangover on the balcony. Room service also brought me a folded Straits Times. Upon opening the newspaper, its screaming headlines informed me of what I had seen at the Manila International Airport yesterday afternoon: The assassination of former Filipino Senator Benigno (Ninoy) Aquino (Mr. white safari suit), plus the murder of the “fall guy,” Rolando Galman (Mr. blue shirt).
Benigno (Ninoy) Aquino
His assassination made all the world’s headlines.
Aquino’s safari suit.
Aquino’s funeral.
In the years to follow this would become the Philippines’ version of our JFK Assassination – full of controversy, conspiracy theories, and political misinformation.
From the beginning of recorded history, in an attempt to govern itself, the human race has always maintained this penchant for spilling blood. Spilt blood equals power. Why is that, dear reader? I had witnessed history in the making at Manila. Lucky-fucky me. I’ll pass on the next one.
Upon returning to Jeddah, we made a beeline to our crew mail boxes at flight operations, where I found my days off request, for leaving the Kingdom, had been approved by my equipment manager. In contrast, Cardinale and the flight engineer’s request to leave the Kingdom for days off had been denied. Instead, they were ordered to report to the equipment manager’s office, to review the accident with the L-1 door at Riyadh.
So why wasn’t I called in, dear reader? It was on account of where I sat in the cockpit – the right seat - making it physically impossible for me to see the doors’ annunciator lights, on the flight engineer’s panel, directly behind me. Ergo, placing one lucky first officer (me) out of the accident loop.
Leaving Cardinale and the flight engineer behind in my contrails – I whistled off to Bangkok for eight days of R&R and carnal bliss.
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